Eponymous and Self-Titled

It has become popular among certain critics to call recordings named after their performing artists “eponymous.” Thus the album by the Beatles titled The Beatles would be an eponymous album. (Don’t remember it? It’s the one most people call The White Album; the title was embossed on the cover rather than printed on it.)

This pretentious term is not only so obscure as to be almost useless, these writers are not using it in its original sense; it was the person who was eponymous, not the thing named after the person.

We prefer the usage of critics who call such recordings “self-titled.”

It’s an awkward phrase, but at least it’s easy for the reader to figure out what is meant.